How We Built this Awesome App

A short story of the development of the Yoruba Bible App

As of January 2015, we never imagined we would develop a Bible App. One of us was awakened from a vivid dream with a divine direction to build a Yoruba Audio Bible App along with two other major projects. That same day, Sanmi and Abiola connected on the phone to make arrangements for the recording of the Audio Bible. Only God could make this possible.

We started recording with Akinsola Ayodele in our in-house studio, which spanned six months non-stop! Today, the Yoruba Audio Bible is now available on the Android and iOS platforms, as well as a web version on our website.

The Story

On 25th March, 2015, in my office/ room in Pullman, WA, I awoke from a dream after having prayed earlier in the night. Prior to this, I had been working on several projects and business concepts which had been so confusing. I was praying to God to give me just one idea which would transform my life. Having written a development plan for a music app, but without funding to kick-start the prototype, I was led into the simple prayer for JUST ONE IDEA. However, I heard a clear voice instructing me to develop THREE IDEAS; the Holy Spirit said I would remember the other two only after I had completed the first project. That first project was to develop a Yoruba Audio Bible app.

“A Bible App?” “I have no plan for that.”

It sounded scary and lacked any business incentive! It is the divine word of God and I did not wish to risk involving myself in its translation or transcription. Being just a baby Christian, I had read that anyone who adds to the bible or removes from it would bear huge consequences. Come to think of it, who could ever risk toying with or turning the Bible, the Word of this Great Everlasting God, into a business model! I had only wanted a business idea, not a Bible. My biggest expectation had been to build a dating site, something I had always wished to do. But to my own surprise as I write this today, all these fears were nowhere to be found when I awoke. I just jumped up with great happiness and with delight without thinking twice about what I was about to do.

“God said I should do it” “I am all for it” “So far He says it, I am up on my feet!”

I enjoyed listening to the English audio bible on a website. I quickly did my research and to my amazement, there was no audio version of the OLD TESTAMENT of the Yoruba Bible. People were not searching for it online which depressed my morale. To be honest, I said to myself, “let me do this as a side project, maybe God will make me remember the other solid ideas.” On that same day, I connected with Abiola Oduremi in Nigeria, and we started work.

We assumed it would be very easy: little did we know the challenges we would face to achieve this. Recording a 3 minute song in studio can make any studio engineer sweat. But alas we were recording the word of God with some of the chapters spanning over fifty minutes! We had to read the chapter, understand it, record, cut, edit, re-record any rough part, final-edit, mix and master! The recording session we had assumed would be completed within four weeks took more than six months! A big lesson I have learnt from this project is if God tells you the challenges you will face to attain your greatness, out of fear, you will never ever take a step. During one of our meetings, Biola and I said, “if we had gone to lengths to research the details of what recording the Bible would cost us, we would not have ventured to do this. Lol.” So I realize it is better to just stay in the dark, close your eyes and follow God’s lead even though you have no clue where He’s leading. Well, God won’t even tell you. Lol. He only wants you to obey in faith.

The Team Members

Sanmi Ayotunde – Designed the app concept, funded the audio recording and app development, designed the web version, and worked with other developers to produce the Android, iOS and Web versions.

Abiola Oduremi – Facilitated the studio recording and recited more than 90% of the Old Testament

Our Achievements

We are happy for where God has thus far brought us. We are amazed and surprised that in the first Month of launching the Bible App, we had over 50,000 downloads, 11,000 active monthly users without any advertisement. We have successfully released several updates and fixed bugs.

Our Expectations

YorubaBible.net is a project open to like-minded people who really wish to contribute to the app: entrepreneurs, reciters, and developers. We are also interested in patrons who want to give a supporting hand to the upkeep of this project. We are presently recording other languages. We look forward to interested individuals, personnel and entrepreneurs who want us to work together on this project to take the Kingdom of God into every home on the planet.

Meet The Team

Sanmi Ayotunde

App Developer & Designer

Founder and Team Leader responsible for software development and upgrades.

Abiola Oduremi

Bible Reciter

A singer and true worshiper. Biola leads the Audio Production, Diction and Pronunciation.

So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.